Description

Now provided is the unique opportunity to acquire the missing
portion of a centerpiece exhibit at a world-renowned museum: the
crown section of the Willamette meteorite at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York City.

The Willamette meteorite is the largest meteorite recovered in
North America and the 6th largest in the world. It is believed the
meteorite fell in Canada or Montana and was a glacial
erratic (i.e., it was deposited in Oregon by glacial activity
during the last Ice Age, which ended approximately 12,000 years
ago). In 1902, miner Ellis Hughes discovered the meteorite on
property adjacent to his own, which belonged to Oregon Iron &
Steel. Recognizing an opportunity to profit, Hughes endeavored to
move the meteorite onto his property. Using a horse, wagon, cables
and capstan, over a period of nine months he ingeniously moved the
15.5 ton nickel iron mass onto his land - and then charged the
curious to view it. When the local newspaper reported the
meteorite's discovery on October 24, 1903, the crowds on the Hugh's
property swelled in size. Unfortunately for Hughes, one of his
customers happened to be an attorney from Oregon Iron & Steel,
and he noticed the telltale groove in the forest leading onto his
employer's land. The company subsequently sued for possession, and
after several colorful court cases, prevailed in its claim. In
1905, the meteorite was exhibited at the 1905 World's Fair; while
the meteorite's future resting place was being debated among civic
leaders, Oregon Iron and Steel sold it to Mrs. William E. Dodge,
who then immediately gifted the meteorite to the American Museum of
Natural History in New York City.

The Willamette meteorite has been on display at the Museum for 102
years - and its tenure has not been a quiet one. It has been the
centerpiece in two major exhibit halls where it has been seen or
touched by an estimated 50 million people. There have also been two
additional custody disputes. In 1990, tens of thousands of
schoolchildren signed petitions to have the meteorite returned to
Oregon. A bill was proposed in support of the schoolchildren's
ambitions in the U.S. Senate and an Oregon congressman suggested
withholding federal funding earmarked for the Museum until the
meteorite was returned. This civics lesson ended when the
children's mentors were ultimately convinced to discontinue their
effort. In 1999 a coalition of Oregonian Native Americans, The
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, filed a claim to have the
meteorite returned to Oregon by invoking the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) - more typically used to
retrieve burial remains and crafted artifacts. According to
Clackamas Indian tradition, the meteorite called "Tomanowos" was
delivered from the Moon to the Clackamas and conveyed messages from
the spirit world since the beginning of time. The Museum filed a
lawsuit in federal court that challenged the Grand Ronde's claim
and requested a declaratory judgment that the meteorite was museum
property. The parties eventually settled out-of-court, where it was
agreed the meteorite would remain a Museum centerpiece and never
again be cut.
As a result of its uniquely dramatic appearance, textbooks
frequently use an image of the Willamete to illustrate a meteorite
(conveying an incorrect impression of what meteorites usually look
like). The deep basin of the meteorite is likely the result of
inclusions having melted during frictional heating in the
atmosphere, which caused small depressions in which water pooled
and oxidized the mass over thousands of years in a manner that
would be determined by Willamette's internal structure - which is
also unique. As evidenced by its singular crystalline matrix, the
Willamette meteorite recrystallized, and it is believe this
could have only occurred as a result of it having melted following
a cataclysmic collision in outer space.

The crown section offered here was removed from the meteorite in
1997 to complete an exchange between the Museum and the Macovich
Collection (for which the Museum received a highly exotic piece of
the planet Mars). The section is comprised of two swooping flanges,
one of which contains a naturally formed hole, joined just above
the specimen's cut and polished surface. Two large troilite
(iron sulfide) inclusions punctuate the sparkling crystalline
face.

As conveyed in the Introduction to Meteorites in the
beginning of this section, when a single meteorite is recovered and
there are no additional specimens from the same event, the
meteorite must necessarily undergo subdivision by scientists for
analysis. The American Museum's Curator of Meteorites, the late Dr.
Martin Prinz, wished to display Willamette's singular internal
structure by cutting off a section of the meteorite, and as a
result of his having done so, science was again served. Following
Dr. Prinz's death, Darryl Pitt, the curator of the Macovich
Collection, noticed peculiar bubbling along the perimeter of one of
the sulfide inclusions and reached out to the world's foremost
expert in iron meteorites, Dr. John Wasson of UCLA, who stated
"These bubbles are fascinating. We cannot remember having seen
angular FeS fragments entrained into a eutectic melt before."
Ongoing research is continuing to take place.
This is the largest specimen cut from the most famous meteorite in
the world - and an unprecedented opportunity to obtain a
conspicuously missing section of a renowned museum centerpiece. 246
x 279 x 158 mm (9.75 x 11 x 6.25 inches) and 13.998 kg (29.5
pounds).

Provenance: American Museum of Natural History, NYC. This
specimen was featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in pages of, among
others, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist and
The Robb Report - where it was presented as one of "21 Ultimate
Gifts" in December 2010.

Estimate: $875,000 - up.

Condition Report*:
Condition report available upon request.

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